


Storm's Coming

by autoschediastic, Ponderosa



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Drunkenness, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rivals, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:17:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autoschediastic/pseuds/autoschediastic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponderosa/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barbossa's skin prickled as more than the passing storm signalled a change in the air. "Seems to me, the ways to an end be plentiful in their numbers."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storm's Coming

Rain pelted the windows, spattered in through a shattered pane to drip a steady stream onto the cabin's floor, and Barbossa enjoyed himself a drink as Jack Sparrow burrowed like a noisy ferret through a chest heavy with spoils. Outside, the unseasonable storm darkened the skies to smudged ash, but the cove they'd anchored in offered fair shelter from the worst of the winds. As was prudent, Barbossa kept a keen ear on the weather and spared a scant measure of attention for the captain's prattling.

Jack was a collection of excitable noises, a veritable cascade of "oohs" and "aahs" and breathy mumblings of, "oh, that's a pretty one," as his efforts unveiled new trinkets to his liking. Thunder pealed a dozen times before he settled upon drawing out a handful of strung pearls from the bounty and a garish coronet bristling with jewels. The fat pearls glistened in the lamplight, and Jack wound the weighty string about his fingers as he propped the golden monstrosity upon his head. "Fine haul, wouldn't you say, Barbossa?"

Barbossa smiled thinly. "Aye," he replied, though he could not help but notice how there was far less to divide amongst the crew when a hefty measure was set aside to go to provisions and repairs. Jack's aptitude for manoeuvring the Pearl into tight spots for a bit of shine wearied a man. But he couldn't argue that there sat before them three chests, not one, and a hold swollen like a maid's pregnant belly, ripe with pilfered cargo that'd fetch a price at a free port.

"Fine haul," Jack repeated, interrupting Barbossa's careful mental tally. An auspicious thing the reckoning tended to Jack's favour, as the good captain had chosen to begin his celebrations prematurely, and had the scales tipped otherwise, Barbossa would have been more inclined to words.

The pearls in Jack's hand clicked same as the beads in his hair as he spun around on his heel with his arms flung wide in a grand gesture. "We'll dine like kings when we make port," he said, his mouth stretching towards a smile. He meandered around the contents of a gutted chest, stepping over a fine silver tea service nestled amongst a spilling tangle of finery only a popinjay would desire made into a coat.

"Stuff our bellies full, mate," Jack continued, swaying forward as if affecting a bow. His eyes glittered, and before righting himself he paused, a fanciful scarf catching his ever-wandering eye. He snatched it into his fist, the gaudy vermillion scrap examined and dismissed with equal swiftness, strewn behind him as he crossed the cabin. "A feast to be remembered. And we shall wash the lot down with some good strong rum."

A few staggering steps brought him close enough to lift the bottle free from Barbossa's grasp, but Jack missed by a yard or more and stumbled into him instead. The ship tilted wildly in the restless sea, and with a hand pressed casual and familiar to Barbossa's chest, Jack staved off rescuing his errant balance to borrow Barbossa's in favour of rescuing the rum.

Barbossa relinquished the bottle to greedy fingers and held his ground. "Careful, Jack, or you'll be dining on splinters long before." He righted Jack and reached past him to snatch a heavy goblet from the table.

"'m always careful, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow," Jack slurred, and he bent backwards near in twain swigging a drink.

The goblet glimmered near as gaudy as the coronet tilting on Jack's head, and Barbossa held it out with a critical eye for Jack to refill, which he proceeded to do, with great aplomb, and trust Jack Sparrow not to a spill a drop no matter how the deck canted.

A drink restored to his hand and Jack otherwise occupied with a mouthful of the passable swill, Barbossa set his sights on availing himself of the captain's chair forthwith. He skirted the table, only to find Jack trailing two steps behind like a monkey, and the foul luck of a violent swell slowed Barbossa's steps to grant Jack the opportunity to swoop around and hinder his way. He stared down at Jack and bided his time, waiting for the flurry that was Jack Sparrow to blow by much like the storm they weathered was bound to.

Weary perhaps of hauling them around, Jack looped the pearls around Barbossa's neck. "In and out with a bounty this sweet and only a few scrapes to the Pearl to show for it," he preened. The captain clearly took great pride in that they'd sailed away free and clear; he fairly oozed satisfaction from each and every pore. But few was a relative number and no matter the wood ashore or the extra canvas below, they'd be limping for awhile yet, and speed, Barbossa knew, was the Pearl's true blessing.

Jack toasted to their success and Barbossa clapped a hand down on his shoulder to spin him around and shove past. Although Jack's reputation for being wild as the winds shone true more times than naught, Barbossa had oft found him predictable as the tide. He spied the surprise beneath heavy lids when after a fresh tip of the bottle their positions had switched and presently, Barbossa enjoyed easing himself into the embrace of a fine, mahogany chair.

"You're in my chair."

Aye, Jack Sparrow, reliable as the rising sun when there was rum to be downed or the obvious to be stated. Barbossa granted him a new, thinner smile.

Jack squinted one eye and then the other as if to test the soundness of their operation, but no trick of the light and only his own stumbling incompetence had afforded Barbossa the opportunity to run his hands lovingly over the detail carved into heavy wood. Once he'd ferreted out Jack's aims--for certainly a man who captained the Pearl did not dream of riches to be found prying gold from the fists of fat merchants--it would be a matter of months, perhaps weeks, before he'd rightly hold the seat.

"Comfortable, innit," Jack said, playing at generosity as he sought to tip the situation back to his advantage. He shook the bottle clutched in his fist to find it lacking, and his gaze jumped to the near-full goblet in Barbossa's hand a mere instant before his nimble fingers switched the two. "Next I worry I shall find you in my bed."

Grown accustomed to a host of Jack's tricks, Barbossa cared not to contest the exchange. He chose instead to roll around Jack's words to find their worth and eyed the paltry scrap of rum left in the bottle; as far as the latter there was more where that came from, a trifling in the hold but plenty more secreted somewhere about in the cabin.

"Your bed, eh?" Barbossa said, and twisted round to cast a glance at the heaping, rumpled mess of it. Maps and charts and some lady's fine sheets lay strewn about like wreckage, one hardly recognisable from the other with the smudge of Jack's fingers upon them all. "Well, 'tis a fine chair, and a fine bed, but if I take to sleepin' in one, will ye be sleepin' in the other, Jack?"

He downed the last mouthful of Jack's shoddy rum, the burn deep in his gut the same no matter the taste on his tongue, and he smoothed a hand over his chin to meet Jack's lopsided grin with a curve on his own lips.

"Hardly," Jack's reply came swift as a diving bird. With far more leisure in action than word, he licked a drop of rum that escaped down his knuckles as the ship and the drink sought to snatch the deck from beneath him. He draped like a faltering banner against the back of the chair, and his breath puffed hot against Barbossa's ear. "My bed, my body. No two ways about it, mate."

Barbossa's skin prickled as more than the passing storm signalled a change in the air. "Seems to me, the ways to an end be plentiful in their numbers."

The goblet dangled precariously from Jack's fingertips as he bestowed more of his weight upon the chair. "I'd not give up my bed even should the devil himself, God rest his soul, appear before me," he said, and his hand wandered from the wood to lay companionably upon Barbossa's shoulder. It took no time at all for him to find an errant thread to pluck at, and he added, somewhat absently: "Man's got to have priorities."

"That so, then. It leaves a man wondering," Barbossa stopped short to snatch a dagger from the tablet and slice the thread afore Jack followed it to its end and left him in naught but seamless cloth and buttons, "'bout your position on sharing, y'see."

Jack rolled the bit of thread into a tangled wad between his fingers and shook it free to the floor, quick to grant Barbossa a solid pat as if to acknowledge the favour. Or perhaps, Barbossa considered, for the scallywag to be certain he was rid of it all.

"Seems to me that you're open enough to sharing one--as you said, it be _your_ chair, Jack--so it follows you must be agreeable enough towards sharing the other." Barbossa tilted his head up and back to take in Jack's lazy sprawl, the slant of his mouth and the light in his eyes equally indolent. He'd had his fill of the hold and its sloshing bilge, and more of his own hand for a bit of company. Jack professed to no objection towards allowing the fairer sex on board, and while Barbossa expressed full agreement upon that account, the rest of the crew did not hold so charitable a position towards that which might sour a man's luck.

"Sharing is hardly something a roguish, black-hearted cutthroat ought partake in, now is it, Hector?" Jack said, and tossing about his given name aside, the path of Jack's hand left little question towards what ends the conversation had turned. Following the tattered edge of a seam, his fingers crept to brush light upon the bared skin of Barbossa's chest. The portrait Jack painted sounded more apt to describe Barbossa's position on things than his own--for all his wiles, the Pearl's young captain had not yet learned to keep a tighter grip on wants and possessions for as greedy as he might seem. Fortuitous circumstances for a first mate who had not signed on for the duty intending to remain as such.

Jack found the strand of pearls again, sent them sliding cool across Barbossa's skin as his fingers tarried near another crooked bit of thread that sought escape from aging embroidery. Barbossa lifted Jack's hand away and Jack made the motion his own, heaving himself up with a bright, "However!" as his touch trailed along Barbossa's collar like the rippling wake of oars pushed through glassy water. He paused in his tracks and cocked his head to listen to the patter of rain on the glass, slower now, and the roar of waves over shoals and shore, then he burst back into motion, making up for lost time by hastening towards the bed. "As long as I am captain of this ship, I can see no reason not to be liberal in allowing others to take some measure of enjoyment in my own good fortune."

Barbossa removed the pearls looped around his neck and tucked them bulging into a pocket where they'd be hidden near as well as Jack's stash of rum. He patted them down and watched from the corner of his eye as Jack dropped into the bed, the coronet tumbling away from him as he settled, flighty as a magpie in his nest of swag. He rescued the goblet from the table where it sat abandoned with a good few mouthfuls of drink to be had and looked over to find Jack had produced a fanciful quizzing glass from somewhere about his person. Jack peered through it, his eye absurdly distorted through the lens, but allowing his gaze to travel downwards, Barbossa found Jack's mouth open, lips parted and tongue snuck out to worry restlessly at the point of a tooth. Barbossa promptly tired of waiting for Jack's limited patience to run out; baiting the captain only provided a spot of entertainment when he held little interest in what Jack really had to offer.

He set the goblet back unquaffed and rose, stalking across the rolling deck to keep his balance on sheer stubborn aggression alone. His knees near kissed the bunk when he stopped, his stance wide and wrist draped lazily on the hilt of the sword buckled at his side. "Take some liberties then, Jack, and give me a measure of enjoyment aside from the gold ye soon will be spillin' into me hand."

Tension spiked, storm-salty air thick with it, and much to Barbossa's surprise, a fresh volley of words did not tumble past Jack's lips. In its stead came movement; Jack tossed the quizzing glass aside and purposefully levered himself up to sitting. He picked an arm up to hold his weight with the other and splayed his hand wide before reaching out to curl his fingers over the heavy buckle of the belt holding Barbossa's pistol. Already the blood in Barbossa's veins ran faster, hot again with a manner of triumph not dissimilar to that of sailing away with fine plunder.

"Afore I do, this goes both ways," Jack said. He wet his lips and his hand slipped down to find buttons, loose them. "My ship, my bed, my rules. As captain."

There came no delay for agreement upon the terms before Jack's fingers found their prize and he spread his legs wide to inch to the edge of the bunk. His head dipped down at once to work with fingers and lips and tongue, and Barbossa drew in a deep breath, his chest swelling along with his prick.

"Never let it be said that I've had nothing but appreciation for that smart mouth," he mumbled, words dying swiftly beneath the hiss of sheeting rain.

Silence made up much of a pirate's accord, and he'd not be raising objections as long as Jack served easy as a Tortuga whore, and proved himself nearly as talented at lighting a fuse in the pit of Barbossa's belly. He rocked forward with the pitch of the ship in the waves, soft wetness taking him whole, and grinned down at Jack's muffled sputter. Keen on keeping the captain where he was, Barbossa brought a hand atop the tangle of Jack's hair and some placating words to soothe the indignant threat of bringing this to an end that surfaced in dark eyes.

"Aye, yer rules, so long as it be your prick in question," Barbossa said. Jack's cheek was gritty with salt and gunpowder and stubble, but his mouth presented nothing but softness, the lip beneath Barbossa's thumb slicked with spit and soon to be red as rouge. "Show me what you like then, if I'm to be less of a scoundrel and give you an equal share."

A bit of shrewdness showed through the haze of drink, speaking clear enough that Jack had little expectation for the favour to be returned in kind. Nevertheless, he held fast, mouth parted and the pink of his tongue showing behind his teeth. His lashes dipped low and he scraped a bite over Barbossa's thumb, swirled a lick against the pad and shifted himself around until he knelt in the rumpled bed. All the while he kept himself bent low, close and ready to swallow, an eagerness showing that sent a shivering thrill racing up Barbossa's spine to raise the hairs curling fine at the nape of his neck.

Jack's tongue lolled out, dragged a wide lick from the base to the tip of him, and Barbossa's hand reflexively tightened.

"Watch the beads atop my head, mate," Jack said, hardly pausing to speak between clever flicks of his tongue. "You break the strand and it'll be your task prying them out from every corner of the cabin."

Barbossa ignored the threat as he did most any attempt at discipline that Jack sought to hand down. He found himself rather fond of the press of beads dangling over the scarf taming Jack's hair, the cool ripple a sight different from the rum-loose heat of the man's mouth, which was by far the more pleasurable of the two.

Finished again for the moment with the task of speaking, Jack sucked him deep, head bobbing eagerly until his lips crushed against the open placket of Barbossa's trousers, and then he held there breathless and willing longer than Barbossa thought him able. A shudder claimed Barbossa's stomach and when Jack pulled away with a gasp, Barbossa shoved him into place again. There came no choking cough nor spasm, but the muffled sound of Jack's surprise made Barbossa's cock swell thicker, and he thrust his hips forward as Jack's hands found the front of his coat to keep the both of them steady.

He considered that it might be the rum coursing through his own blood that loosened the hold he had on himself, but more likely it found root in the ease Jack permitted him, not a bit of complaint in noises freely made. And as the sounds of Jack's hungry mouth and his willingness blossomed and blended, Barbossa's thoughts strayed into wonderment if Jack would be equally agreeable if a man meant to fuck himself into Jack's sweetness in other ways.

He gripped the edges of Jack's shirt and tugged without care, upsetting the tie of the sash circling Jack's waist and whatever hobs and knobs the man secreted away in them. Barbossa hauled him upwards, and Jack's limbs remained pliant as a seasoned ship's boy even as Barbossa's spit-slick cock rubbed wet against the bare patch of Jack's chest.

"So you suck like a whore, do your rules share their same cavilling or are you even more liberal that that?" Barbossa asked. He dragged Jack higher, caught him under the chin with a hand and brought their mouths to a crushing meeting. When time permitted, he held a penchant for more passion than just pleasure in his coupling and he tasted his own sweat and run thick on Jack's tongue. He should've known that Jack would not be on to just take a kiss but surge ahead of it, and only reaching down to find Jack's cock swollen through the weight of his trousers paused the hungry lash of his tongue.

Jack had an answer now, a wanton groan that slackened his face, and his hand staggered down Barbossa's front, wound around until he had Barbossa's prick in hand to match. He twisted and tugged, slickness fading to friction, and rocked back until he could manage a level gaze. His mouth reddened and thick, and his fingers far from being at rest, his words proved more than was custom to be a trial to follow.

"Depends on what liberties a man such as you might seek, and how smartly a man such as I who'd grant said liberties might expect to be treated."

Barbossa fought an urge to roll his eyes. Often he found Jack's convoluted way of speaking a puzzle worth untangling, but presently it served as hardly more than a hindrance, something Jack used his mouth for when far better options waited at his very fingertips.

Jack's smile wavered at the edges before broadening, and he released his hold on Barbossa to drop back again, scrape his bootheels against the edge of the bunk until leather fell thumping to the floor. He stripped himself of his shirt and sat back up in a flash, his fists catching the front of Barbossa's coat to haul him forward. Barbossa didn't so much fall atop Jack had that been his purpose, but instead caught his weight on a wrist to continue looming, if from a different angle than before. He set a knee between Jack's thighs and gave them a nudge.

"Shall we go about wasting more time with pointless negotiations or shall we agree we be wanting the same and go about getting that, instead?"

Captain or not, Jack made it clear that he had little care about which way the bodies rolled. "There's oil in the lamp if you reach to the side," he said, his legs spread in invitation as his mouth parted with equal liberty.

The heat of Jack's chest radiated in the cooling air and his kiss proved no less fervent than the last. Only when Barbossa's weight pressed atop him did he yelp and twist away, leaving Barbossa chasing after him with the tang of blood in his mouth. If Jack's cry merited a laugh, then the sharpness of his teeth deserved as much of a groan, nevermind it being Jack's proclivity towards a bit of clumsiness that caused it. Barbossa eased up, stripped the pistol from his belt, and tossed it out of reach. He scrubbed the back of a hand over his mouth and tongued the tiny nip, going on to manage well enough one-handed to be rid of anything else jabbing tender flesh that Jack might see fit to raise objection towards.

He went even so far as to open his shirt for Jack's wandering hands, rough and callused and prickling sensation deep into every patch of skin they found. "Does that satisfy ye then?"

"Well enough to see you go about satisfying me further."

Barbossa laughed heartily. He sunk his hand further into the crush of silks beneath the fan of Jack's elflocks and used his other to chart a path down the centre of Jack' chest. He tore aside the loosened ripple of Jack's sash to bare a long unbroken line from the flesh of Jack's throat to the heavy weight of his balls.

"Best rid yourself of anything denying me my satisfaction, else ye'll have mending to while away the hours upon the morrow."

His fingers found the oil and it dripped golden twixt his fingers as he wet his prick, gave it a few lazy tugs while Jack wriggled out of his breeches and stripped down until clothed in scant more than scars and ink. Barbossa wiped the remainder between Jack's legs, pressed and rubbed with slippery fingers until he found what he sought and Jack's body tensed and trembled.

"It's good, mate," Jack said, urging him on with a leg hooked around him and a twitch of narrow hips.

"Aye, so it is, but I be keen to the notion that it could be better," Barbossa said, and abandoned hovering above Jack to sweep aside a bare spot and settle down properly in the generous bed. He pulled Jack over and atop him, guided him into place until his knees were wide and his thighs spread, the trim lines of his body stretched out to be admired with the rest of the cabin yawning behind him.

Barbossa ran his hands down Jack's sides in a slow caress, felt the ripple of muscle and bone carved as smooth and fine as the whorls on the bedposts. Jack shifted impatiently, rubbed himself like a randy bitch against the stiffness of Barbossa's prick, and sought an angle that'd let him get the job done on his own terms. Barbossa caught his arms before he seized the occasion to reach down and do it right. "What be the hurry, Jack?" he asked, and tightened his hold on Jack's wrists.

Jack curled forward, hair dangling to surround and scratch at Barbossa's face. "I believe I said something to the effect of 'my rules,' and taking into consideration the breadth of my generosity, a bit of haste isn't much to ask for, now is it?" he said, voice gone as smoky as his eyes, and this time Barbossa let him have his way to reach behind and fumble with oil-slicked flesh until they were poised to fit like lock and key.

Jack sighed, a low, humming sound, and his torso twisted as he pushed himself down to take Barbossa's prick. Lamplight glimmered off slashes of pale scars that crossed his belly as he lowered his weight, and Barbossa couldn't help but groan as Jack's body opened grudgingly. Jack didn't take the width of him easily as he had with tongue and throat, but it hardly mattered for the moans that filled the air as sweet as birdsong, and that raised in pitch when Barbossa braced his hands on Jack's thighs and rocked into him.

The air pressed close as a lover as the ship rolled in the waves and Barbossa caught Jack's hands again, pinned them to the bedding, and forced him into an agreeable rhythm. "No wonder the brothel girls be speaking ill of you once you've gone if this be any indication of how you go about treatin' them," Barbossa said, and Jack faltered in his desperate grinding. "Possess you no resolve to stave off the inevitable?"

"Only death is inevitable, and _that_ I've a plan for," Jack said, slinking low again. The corner of his mouth lifted and his legs spread wider, prick burning hot against Barbossa's stomach. "This, however, is a luxury that's few and far between, and any good pirate would keep to the code when seeing fit to indulge."

"Give nothing back might be well enough for most, but it makes you a piss poor lover, Jack," Barbossa said, and rolled them over. His cock slipped free, dragged wetly against Jack's thigh, and he was near satisfied with the gritty pleasure of that, but a few half-thrusts and Jack's moaning helped to guide him home again. Nerves shooting fire straight towards his spine, Barbossa slammed forward to wrench a cry from Jack. Jack arched beautifully, groaned and bucked his hips as best he could once the ache faded, and Barbossa felt his lips stretch into a hungry grin that refused to fade. His skin cooled despite the heat, sweat turned to salt on his skin, and his tongue dried within his mouth. Every inch of his body hummed, the echoes reverberating down to his very bones as he pounded into Jack, lost himself to the raw pleasure of fucking a body lay wide beneath him while the sharp scrape of teeth left marks upon his neck.

Easing his wild pace, Barbossa pressed a wet kiss to the slant of Jack's shoulder, tasted the sea in dark skin as Jack wound his arms together behind Barbossa's neck. "Now who's treating their lover with ill regard. Wind gone from your sails already?" Jack taunted. He curved a coy smile and writhed shamelessly, his body clutching hotly to steal the breath from Barbossa's chest.

"I be of a mind to recall the captain of this ship encouraging a man take what he can," Barbossa said, eyes narrowed down to slits. He shoved his hands beneath Jack and rose no further to the bait, fucked him slow and steady until the shivering echoes of each thrust ran all the way up to the winging curves of Jack's shoulderblades.

Loose in his cradling arms, Jack rocked with him and shared messy kisses between harsh bites to cheek and chin that failed to raise his ire. "Bite all you want, Jack," Barbossa said, the sting a welcome counterpart to the leisurely grind of his hips.

"I need-" Jack panted, and the sweat that caused their skin to catch sticky glistened on his neck.

Barbossa licked up a trickling drop and dragged his arms out from beneath Jack to seize his elbow and push it high. "Aye, what is it you be needing? You best say what's on your mind," Barbossa said, and Jack flinched when his lips brushed against sweat-damp curls. His innards glowed warm as coals, and he found pleasure in the simplest things: the trembling in Jack's bicep beneath his thumb, the creaking sway of the ship, the prickling weight of his queue as he tossed his head to settle it back along his spine.

Jack tried to speak again, lost the words to a garbled sound, and he half-moaned, half-sobbed when Barbossa ran his tongue wide from the taut peak of a nipple to the twitching curve of his underarm.

"Surely with the way you're carrying on, you don't need a merciful hand to send you spilling wet upon your belly." Barbossa sank his teeth into the corded muscle of Jack's arm, and he lost a moan of his own as Jack clenched tight around his prick. He dragged open-mouthed kisses downward, wriggled his tongue against the most tender flesh he could locate, the sharpness of Jack's sweat as satisfying as the way he twisted and clenched and strove keenly to hold himself away from begging a reprieve.

When that gasping plea kissed his ears, Barbossa crowed a laugh, drew back and thrust so deep his teeth ached with the raw bliss of it, and he crushed his mouth to Jack's, tongue leaving the musk of Jack's sweat to mingle with the fading taste of rum. He pinned Jack's shoulder to the bed with one hand to fuck him ruthlessly, and did so with no further care given to any pleasure but his own. He rutted into Jack, spared no quarter for anything but the basest of needs, and Jack moaned for it, twisted his hands into the bedding. In mere minutes the space between them went slippery, flesh sliding effortlessly against flesh.

His head ringing like a canon had roared too near, Barbossa pulled out, left Jack wide-eyed in shock as his prick continued to spasm, smeared his belly whiter still, and Barbossa caught a flash of Jack's cunt-pink hole gaping betwixt his legs before he rolled Jack face-down and stuffed him full again. He hooked an arm under Jack, kept him fitted tight as he ground himself deep and rubbed the mess slicking Jack's belly until it faded.

When his vision had been eaten away until only moments captured still as portraits remained, Barbossa let Jack slump forward, the ripples in flesh as he snapped his forward committed to memory. He splayed his hands over the base of Jack's spine, inched his fingers down until his thumbs near touched where his prick split Jack wide, and he let the rolling pitch of the ship bring him to his end.

As he slipped free of Jack's body one last time, he swept a thumb over Jack's wet hole, felt muscle draw tight, come leaking free to drip down with the slather of what oil remained. He wiped it aside, let it sink into Jack's skin and collapsed beside Jack with an explosive sigh.

Jack remained still long enough for Barbossa to catch his breath, and then he, too, shifted to lay upon his back and stare upwards at the stretch of the ceiling.

"What be your plan, Jack?" Barbossa asked. "Waves have calmed but the wind's still blowin'."

Jack flung an arm out, rustled around in the mess of the sheets and came up with a hazy bottle dark with rum. He uncorked it and pushed himself up just far enough to drink, his gaze fixed on some point far distant. "Another go once we've settled, then we make for port and have ourselves a meal that's neither salted nor trying to crawl its way off the plate."

"And after?"

"We'll see where the needle guides us."


End file.
